A common type of electrical connector system includes a male assembly and a female receptacle connector, where the male assembly is inserted into the female receptacle assembly to establish electrical continuity. Heat is perhaps the most common cause of failure in these types of electrical connectors, particularly those carrying high currents and subject to increased power. Heat builds up in the connector and when not properly dissipated causes deterioration of connector components and failure of the connector. Efforts have been made in connector technology to limit and remove the heat in electrical connectors in an efficient manner. However, such efforts have relied almost entirely on thermal conduction and conventional connector designs resulting in only limited success. Success in these efforts has been made more difficult by the increasing use of higher currents and smaller connectors in almost all areas of technology, and particularly in computers, telecommunications and industrial applications.
In most cases, heat dissipation within a connector is limited by the presence of discontinuities within the connector which do not provide a continuous path of high thermal conductivity between the connector's internal conductors and its outer skin for heat dissipation to the atmosphere. In other connectors, while materials having high electrical insulative characteristics are used, these same materials have only limited thermal conductivity and do not promote heat dissipation from the connector.
The present invention addresses these limitations of the prior art by providing for the heat generating connector components a continuous path of low thermal resistance throughout the entire connector to its outer periphery, while completely encapsulating these sources of heat within the connector with materials having high electrical resistance and low resistance to thermal flow to facilitate heat discharge from the connector without the increased complexity and additional cost of a heat sink.